mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

Wednesday Recruitin'

Ray Vinopal Goes Blue

For a defensive back commit, most Michigan fans weren't too excited about it (ironic, since many were complaining about the mental deficiencies of Michigan's DBs this year), but OH S Ray Vinopal has pledged his word to become a Michigan Wolverine. The 1st-Team All-Ohio selection and State Champion doesn't worry about the haters, though, as he told mgoblog's Tom Van Haaren:

Ray Vinopal - "I read what people say about me, I'm going to work my a** off to prove everyone of them wrong. I'm not scared."

Ray Vinopal - "I've been an all state sprinter in Ohio, so I'm not slow. I know what I can do, and we're going to turn it around."

Vinopal has combine-reported 5-10 height and 4.56 speed, for those who were questioning the accuracy of those numbers. He also comes from a traditionally-power football program that pumps out a number of D-1 prospects every year. Hopefully, Ray has success at Michigan, and helps open a pipeline into Cardinal Mooney.

Josh Furman

MD LB/S Josh Furman still plans to announce his final college decision at the Maryland Crab Bowl on December 19th. He has narrowed his choices down to Michigan and Virginia Tech, and has already informed both schoolswhat his final decision will be. The recent rumblings from all parties say that Michigan is the likely choice. If Michigan is the choice, the fact that he nearly threw out his Michigan offer without even opening the envelope will be quite ironic indeed:

After his junior season, Maryland and West Virginia had extended scholarship offers. Then, last February, Dunlap was leafing through a pile of recruiting mail for Furman and tossed aside several form letters from schools that are typically sent to jog a recruit's attention. One of them was from Michigan, but Dunlap had a second thought and picked it out of the garbage.

"Then I read it," Dunlap said, "and when I got to the part where it said, 'full athletic scholarship,' I ran down the hall to tell him about it."

Furman's first major offer from a school outside of the region set off a frenzy.

Furman has been a highly-productive running back this year, though he left the State Championship game (which his team ultimately won) with a knee injury early in the contest. Video of that game can be seen here. As far as the injury goes, "smileyworm" on Scout is Furman's coach and he reports that there's nothing to worry about:

He is 100% ok. Heard something pop during a run and it felt funny afterwards. Was held out as a precaution. The knee didn't even swell. Will still play in the crab bowl on the 19th.

Will Carvin Waver?

I brought this up in yesterday's Friday Night Lights post, but it's worth examining in depth: LA S commit Carvin Johnson may be starting to pick up from interest from the hometown LSU Tigers.

Having seen Wilson Thursday, he played coy and smiled. When I asked him about LSU and suggested the possible move to LSU to him, he simply said, “you think?” and “we’ll see.” Wilson was wearing a Tennessee pullover. Frank was in town at Archbishop Rummel High School, taking a hard look at Carvin Johnson, who has verbally committed to Michigan. He likes the 6’1, 190 pound senior safety and may recruit him wherever he coaches next year.

One thing Wilson did comment on was the fact that there are so many good players in Louisiana and that’s why he, Tennessee, Alabama, Ole Miss and other SEC powers spend so much time in the state. He also opined that while LSU has gotten most of those outstanding home-grown players, they have either missed on or not recruited others, including the likes of Rummel’s Johnson.

No. We found him first. You didn't want him. OURS OURS OURS.

LSU's recruitment of Johnson means two main things:

1) Michigan found a sleeper before any other big schools got on him, and now other teams see what the Wolverines unearthed first. LSU doesn't exactly suffer from a lack of DB talent, so if they want him, you know this kid's a player. There are seemingly two factions warring it out in the Michigan interwebs, one of which says to trust Rodriguez's recruiting strategy. and the other of which says "omg that guy wasn't even rated." Score one for group the former.

2) The Wolverines might just have a battle on their hands to keep Carvin Johnson in the class. It's always hard to turn down the hometown team. When said hometown team is 3 years removed from a national title, and Michigan is struggling through a rebuilding process, that's just all the more incentive to reconsider (except that Michigan can offer mountains of playing time).

Keep an eye on this situation, and hopefully the coaches will be able to keep Carvin blue.

All-Star Update

PA CB commit Cullen Christian was added to the Army All-American Bowl roster last week, bringing the total number of Michigan commits to... 2. Christian joins WI P commit Will Hagerup on the East roster.

"I'm going to represent Michigan down there just like I'm going to represent Penn Hills," he said. "I'm going to go all out and try to make my team look good."

OH S Latwan Anderson and PA DT Sharrif Floyd are longshots for Michigan on the East roster.

In the other big All-Star contest, MI QB commit Devin Gardner is the only Wolverine selected to the ESPNU Under Armour game. No other prospects selected to that game are strongly considering Michigan at this time.

Well, that brightened my day. But, I am calling BS. From the background, this pic was obviously taken at the plaze at Mich Stadium, but I think that we all know that there are no girls this hot in AA, so you must have photoshopped it.

I think that RR is doing a good job of filling specific areas of need in this class, and I certainly don't think that the star system is everything, but am I the only one who is a bit disappointed that we only have 3 players in the 2 All-Star games (and one of them is a punter). Again, not criticizing our recruiting (as I recognize how hard it is to recruit when you are in the midst of a massive rebuilding process, have 3-9 and 5-7 seasons and are the target of media johad), but it is just somewhat disappointing.

Tim - I hate to nit-pick when you present us with so much awesome recruiting information, but whenever I go to the 2010 recruiting board after you tell me its been updated I feel like it still has a ton of out-dated information. This week for example Vinopal isn't even on the committed list. And some of the inconsistencies in how even the committed or likely recruits are handled seems like it still hasn't been fully cleaned up.

Then again, when your team isn't in a bowl and is in the middle of an uncomfortable rebuilding process these types of recruiting summaries are what we are forced to obsess over. Ugh..... Thanks for the update!

Carvin is the guy I am most excited about in the recruiting class. Every single time we've gotten a new snippet on him it has strengthened my belief that he is going to be a fantastic player. I really hope he still comes here as I look forward to cheering him on for many Saturdays.

to Marcus “You don’t want to go to a college where they ain’t pretty” Lattimore—that'll cinch the deal for us. As an added benefit, the cost of sales will be quite low—RR won't have to go visit him or spend any time on UM's academic opportunities.

Occasional excess is necessary to remedy the deadening effects of moderation.

Having attended UM and now spending some time tutoring at the University of Arizona, I'm sad to say that if coeds are the recruit's main interest, unless the recruit likes studious Koreans, we're behind the 8-ball indeed.

I agree - the multitude of all-star games makes it difficult to really distinguish between kids. I will say that Boisture is one of the weirder stories this year - he was consistently knocked by people who saw him play, yet he was still touted as some elite prospect. It will be interesting to see how he does in East Lansing in a couple of years.

There are seemingly two factions warring it out in the Michigan interwebs, one of which says to trust Rodriguez's recruiting strategy. and the other of which says "omg that guy wasn't even rated." Score one for group the former.

"Trust the coaches" isn't an evaluative strategy, in fact, ignoring independent evaluations like recruiting rankings and offer lists in favor of this slogan is fundamentally anti-evaluative. To then say that interest from an independent program confirms this mantra is mindbogglingly convoluted.

I get your point. I took Tim's comment as more of an "I told you so" deal rather than confirmation of an "evaluative strategy." As in this fictional conversation between the two factions:

Carvin Johnson Commits

Trust the Coaches: Woo hoo!
OMG 2 star: OMG! 2 star! No offer list!
TtC: Trust the coaches.
OMG2S: WTF! Why is RR filling up this class with 2-stars instead of waiting to see how the 4-stars shake out?!
TtC: If they thought they could, they would (HT: Chitown). Trust the coaches.

It wouldn't be contradictory if the TtC faction isn't considering those data in their initial reactions. The added star or offer or whatever could just be gravy, as in, "not only was I stoked when Johnson (or whoever) committed, I'm extra stoked now that school X also wants him! BOOM, external confirmation of something I was already sure of!"

Maybe that's the sentiment I was shooting for more than "I told you so."

But believe me, I understand your point. I'm not sure it's any great revelation that people on the internets can hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time, but I get your point.